


When This Boy Met That Boy

by aisle_one



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, M/M, Underage Sex, passing reference to incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 09:00:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisle_one/pseuds/aisle_one
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles and Erik meet at a juvenile detention center for mutants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Charles is 15. Erik is 17.
> 
> _____

This boy Charles toyed with men. He had them dance like fools in the midst of serious business, for instance: on the senate floor surrounded by legislative counsel, at the heels of a roaring speech about this or that, and - reduced them to monkeys, absent the props, clapping their hands, bearing a grin too wide. Too candid. He made men this way, too, sloughed away the artifice from things that went unspoken. Unfiltered, men confessed damning things, filthy, rotten fantasies, and depraved propensities. (One man made his child weep and his wife nearly hack off his cock when he uttered over a forkful of meatloaf - it was dinner, you see - that he dreamed of licking his daughter's pussy, roping his tongue over the tender peaks of her ripened breasts.) Others revealed prejudices, unhampered by a sense of self-preservation stolen by Charles during a fit of tantrum, sick of the lies, lies, lies.

"Why shouldn't everyone know?" he had cried out, convinced of the righteousness in revealing truth. A near fatal consequence, this confession. 

They came when he was bathing, while physical signs of burgeoning adulthood occupied him. He had his prick in his hand, and the sight of it erect, plump and red, was mesmerizing. Even so, the task of capturing a telepath was no walk in the park, but they were prepared, armored in helmets impervious to psionic abilities, and in their hands they held guns. They shot a tranq loaded with inhibitors, enough to drug an army of telepaths to the gills. A necessary precaution for this boy - for this boy had the power of a god.

 

_

 

That boy Erik was angry. A simpleton could conclude this. Erik's favorite pastime involved breaking things - "or I could break your face," he would retort when challenged, scolded, drenched in platitudes of _it gets better_.

It didn't. He was shit at manipulating metal and sick of Shaw's taunting. "That is _weak_ ," Shaw said, laughing in his face, riling his minions. Erik had none, not an acquaintance or friend and, thus, no one to cheer for him when he launched a disc of metal - five quarters melded into one silver boomerang - and no one to commiserate with when Shaw, brilliant and terrifying, absorbed the thing and spewed it back as bullets. They stopped short of piercing Erik, swift as he was, at least, in his defenses.

Erik was friendless, motherless, and couldn't keep a roommate, three facts that were just that and Erik didn't need consoling. He didn't need Brian or Jacob or Joe, or Arnie, who made dandelions sprout from the carpeted floor of their room. Arnie heard voices, that was his crime, but it was the dandelions that sentenced him to this detention center. The juvie for freaks - with benefits, _special_ each and every one of them.

 

_

 

Charles wore bands around his wrists to monitor him, while the inhibitor drugs kept him dull. Charles didn't know what it was like to be blind or deaf - no, not really, no more than he knew what it was like to be burned, or fall out of a tree, or be kissed (definitely not that) - but he imagined that it must have felt like this - half the world with the volume pitched low, and the rest of it screaming. 

It unbalanced him, threw his center of gravity off kilter.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Erik walked in. "I didn't see you," Charles said, breathing faster than usual. He bent to pick up the book he had dropped. He hadn't heard Erik either, not the approach of his footsteps, though distinctly pitched - firm and commanding, Charles realized with closer attention. His sense of hearing was no more acclimated than his sense of other awareness. What need had he before, after all, with his kind of access. 

Erik rolled his eyes. "Obviously." He gave Charles an appraising look. "So, you're the new guy."

"I suppose I am," Charles replied.

"Well, new guy - " Erik swept his arms in a grand gesture " - welcome to the rest of your life."

 

_

 

Charles slept a lot and this, by default, made him a passable roommate. Awake, he was as unobtrusive.

He sat huddled on his bed, flanked by pillows and blankets, fiddling with the bands around his wrists and staring at nothing. His eyes reminded Erik of a clear sky and his lips were red as cherries. They swelled when he worried them. He never spoke.

His silence made Erik curious and a day came when Erik decided to crack it. "What did you do?" Erik asked. His lack of ceremony jolted Charles from his stupor, and he blinked as if shocked awake from a dousing of cold water.

"Pardon me?" he asked.

"What did you do?" Erik repeated. "To end up here, I mean." To further clarify, Erik sent a paperclip spinning into the air. He summoned up strength and focus, every ounce he could spare, and twisted the paperclip into a spiral. The spiral spiralled. The show endured for minutes. Afterward, Erik fell back on his bed, drained.

"That was amazing," Charles said, his voice full of awe and he was honest to god clapping. For real.

Erik snorted. "It's small potatoes." Nothing that would land him a spot on late night TV amusing the human audiences with mutant carnival tricks. Nowhere near as impressive as Shaw's lethal prowess. It wasn't worth praising, certainly none of what Charles was still heaping on him. "I'm serious, you're - " he was saying when Erik interrupted with, "You haven't answered my question."

"Oh," Charles said, "right." He turned away. He resumed his huddle and the blank stare, relocating his gaze to the same invisible point where his eyes focused earlier. "It was my stepfather. I cost him an election." Then he told Erik how.

 

_

 

On Christmas morning, after breakfast in the canteen, Charles returned to the room before Erik. Hurriedly, he sifted through his drawer of their shared bureau and pulled out a small box wrapped in brown paper, simultaneously sending socks and underwear tumbling to the floor. Charles grumbled. He was still setting things straight when Erik walked in. Charles spun to face him, and swung his hand holding the box behind him.

"Hi," Charles said, perfectly normal. Not at all twitching.

"Hi," Erik replied, raising his eyebrows. He waggled them briefly, sending Charles into a fit of laughter. Done with entertaining, he launched himself onto his bed, onto his stomach, and was immediately engrossed in the latest issue of _The Outsiders_.

"Um," Charles said and crept forward. "I, ah, know you don't celebrate, that is that you're not...I mean I hope I don't offend you, but I just thought that - " He stopped. The gibbering was worsening matters and Erik was now looking at him as if he had grown a second head. He brought his arm around and extended the box to Erik. "I apologize for its crude appearance, but the staff would only give me paper bags for wrapper."

Erik stared at it, uncomprehending. "What is it?"

"Merry, um - er, happy holidays, or Hanukkah." Charles sighed. "I have no idea. I just wanted to get you a little something."

"But I don't have anything for you."

"I know."

Erik took his time unwrapping the box, carefully stripping away the tape, relaxing the creases of the unfolded ends. Finally, it was open and he tipped the contents on his bed: coins, paper clips, nails, screws, a girl's barrette, wire, other random bits of metal. "Charles?" he asked.

"I collected them for you." Metal items were considered a hazard and guarded closely. He sat down next to Erik. "You could use them. To practice, I mean. And I - " Charles paused and held his breath. He had asked before and Erik had bristled. But that was then. It was different now. Now, they were friends. "I could help. If you wanted me to, that is, you shouldn't feel obligated of course, but if you wanted - "

"Yeah," Erik said, sliding his hand into Charles's and squeezing. "I do." His eyes shone. "I'd like that."

 

_

 

Azazel towered over Charles. Most people did.

Charles was pressed flat against the tile wall, naked from the waist up and wet. He was shivering, his pinked skin broken out in gooseflesh and he had both arms crossed over his torso. Despite his chattering teeth, his jaw was clenched angrily and his chin jutted out in challenge. Azazel had him bracketed with his broader build. His tail swished through and around Charles's ankles, climbing his limbs like a vine. It slithered up, between Charles's thighs, and disappeared beneath the towel slung low on Charles's narrow hips. Charles paled. A small, pained noise escaped him.

"Hey!" Erik yelled.

Azazel jerked back. A puff of smoke materialized and just as quickly fizzled, and Azazel disappeared and reappeared in seconds, banging his head on the ceiling in the process of trying to escape. Inhibitors, fuck yeah - and _that_ Erik never, ever contemplated thinking.

Erik kicked Azazel once on the shin, twice on his stomach, and his foot was raised, his heel aimed for the center of Azazel's red forehead when Charles caught his wrist and tugged. "Erik, no," he said, still shivering, teeth still rattling, dripping a puddle under his feet. Erik wrenched his arm free. He shoved his shaking fists into his pockets. 

"I warned you about this," Erik said. "There's a reason why no one uses the showers alone."

Charles boggled at him. "You can't be serious. You're not actually blaming me for what happened - almost happened here. You know why I shower alone."

Erik did. Charles was still adjusting, hyperaware and not aware enough. Too many people in close quarters made him jumpy. "Right," Erik said, carding a hand through his hair, and instantly deflated. After one last half-assed kick to Azazel's shoulder - and Erik was smugly satisfied when he winced - Erik urged Charles along. "Let's go," he said, offering an arm. Charles fit under it easily, neatly. "Next time, I'll come with you."


	2. Chapter 2

This boy Charles had a sister named Raven. After months of waiting, she finally visited.

Raven pulled her chair as near to Charles as was permitted. They were not allowed to touch. "Charles," she said, laying a hand between them. Her face crumpled. "Mum is dead." Oh. 

Raven was magical, more magical than Charles. She could change into anyone, anything living, but as Charles's sister she was blond, blue-eyed, pretty as the girl next door. She passed easily, and now she was alone with Kurt and Cain.

That day, Charles considered the bands circling his wrists. The scabs were long healed beneath them. They had given him away. But that was history, and he had learned his lesson. 

The staff circulated to their room and hovered over Charles. He swallowed the inhibitors and lifted his tongue to show them. No tricks, no games. He would be good. He would be obedient. He would play by Kurt's rules and never, ever again break them.

 

_

 

That boy Erik dreamed of his mother. In his favorite dream, she wore a yellow apron and her cheek was smeared with flour. Erik sat at the dining table and she set down a humungous cake before him decorated in superheroes and loaded with thirteen candles, the kind that relit.

Erik was too old for this - look, the candles barely fit. Never. His mother said, smiling wide, never ever. The next cake would be bigger, and the one after it bigger still. For every year a cake to accommodate his growing years, his growing life, expanding, ballooning, his capacity as endless as the skies.

When Charles told Erik, "I believe in you," it resounded in memories like this, when once Erik believed it, too, that even a boy like him could outgrow inadequacy and become a better man. A great one. One who would yield power effortlessly.

Erik didn't used to remember his dreams, not until -

"Erik," Charles whispered excitedly.

Erik's eyes shot open. It was morning, but barely. He touched his temples and his fingers came away damp with sweat. Another nightmare. "Did I wake you again?"

"Yeah, it's all right. Look," he said. "Look up." Erik followed the outline of his finger. Suspended in the air, hovering above the center of the room, was an angel made of metal. Its wings were colored copper and so fine as to be nearly ethereal. "I told you," Charles said, "I told you."

"I made that?" Erik asked, stunned.

Charles nodded. "You were dreaming about your mother, before Sebastian." The memory returned, not the dream, for Erik hardly remembered them. It was the last Mother's Day before she passed from cancer. The angel he had given her, in actuality, was hardly more than a stick figure representation, but she had been proud. So proud.

If Erik could do this in his sleep - "The possibilities are endless," Charles said.

They practiced. Charles returned to Erik snapshots of his younger life, happier times he had purposely forgotten to ease his grief, the ache of loss. They ballooned, expanded, and grew to inhabit him, until he realized and understood, until he believed that he didn't need anger after all, that power, stripped of the weight of anger, made him invincible.

The day Raven came to visit, Erik expected Charles to return to their room buoyant. Instead, he returned to sit on his bed in a huddle as Erik had not seen him do in months. 

Much later, Erik joined Charles on Charles's bed. "I'm sorry," he said, despite hating those words. No one's sorry had ever made up for the fact of his mother's absence. Charles shifted to make more room for him, stretching out on his side nearer to the wall. Erik followed and fit to Charles's back. He slung an arm over Charles's waist and held tight.

 

_

 

The chain-link fence spiked with barbed wires surrounding the compound was mostly for show. To encourage stereotype and a false sense of security among the humans. The mayor of the city - weekend golfing partner of Charles's stepfather - profited most from this display.

Erik was kicking at the dirt. He picked at his face, at a ragged cut on his jaw earned from his latest spat with Sebastian. Sebastian, who had the might to stroll through the gates of the fence without resistance, but chose imprisonment, scaled it like a ladder of opportunity, honing and training, and amassing an army among the disgruntled. He never let Erik forget it.

"Now, now," Charles said. He took Erik by the hand and walked him back to where Erik had been knitting apart a clean break in the fence, large enough to be meaningful, but of a size that Erik could quickly repair it if staff came to check on them. "You can't rely on being pissed off to get you going." Rather, it inhibited him, created limitations where there were none. Charles had delved into Erik's mind and knew what he was capable of.

"I'm tired," Erik groused.

"Shall we go have a nap instead?" Charles asked. "I could sing you a lullaby."

"Haha," Erik replied, but sank to his knees. He hovered his hands over the break. "I think," Charles said, running a reassuring hand up and down Erik's arm, "you won't always need to do that." No more than Charles would have need of his fingers to his temple to call up his telepathy. Someday, there would be no tells. "Good," Charles encouraged, as Erik tore through another link. "That's good, keep going." Charles didn't sing him a lullaby, but as Erik worked he commenced telling stories, lifting them from the pages of Erik's life.

 

_

 

Charles was a horrible singer. Terrible, terrible. The echo in the shower stalls made it worse.

"You are damaging my ears," Erik sincerely told him. "Have you been taking lessons from Sean?"

In revenge, Charles splattered him with water. He giggled when Erik caught him around the waist, pinning Charles's arms to his side as he readied for another attack. Charles was a tiny thing and he lifted off his feet. Scrappy, too, and in the next second, with his legs wound through Erik's, they crashed into the tile wall - with Charles pinning Erik. Turnabout was fair play. 

"Hi," Charles said, smiling. His lips were obscenely red. Water dripped into his eyes from his fringe plastered flat on his forehead. Hoisted up as Erik had him, they were eye to eye. His breath felt moist against Erik's lips. It smelled wintergreen fresh.

"Hi there," Erik said, and no longer able to resist, finally, _finally_ , kissed him.

Later, in the dark, on Erik's bed, with Charles pinned beneath him, Erik spent hours stroking Charles's mouth with his tongue, licking at the seam, tracing the contour of his full bottom lip. 

"I - " Charles said, slippery and wild with arousal. He stroked Erik's cheek as Erik lowered his head. Charles's chest heaved with the effort of breathing. "I - I've never, I've never." He gasped when Erik licked him. His nipple sprang to life hard with insistence as Erik lavished it with thick, full strokes, the pointed end of his flicking tongue.

Erik wanted him - _profoundly_ , as he did not, could not have anticipated. He wanted everything, to be inside Charles, to watch him come apart on Erik's fingers, on his cock - his tongue. That, Erik had never, but for Charles he would. He'd beg for it. But tonight - tonight Charles had a fist in his mouth, stifling his cries, stimulated to overwhelmed from Erik's hand on his cock, and he came soon, his head thrashing, and trembling like a newborn foal. Erik collapsed on top of him, undone by the sight.

(Though weeks later, Charles straddled Erik's lap and rocked forward, causing Erik's cock to fully sheathe inside him. "Come on," Charles said, and slapped Erik's thigh. "Put your back into it, love." He burst out laughing. An uproarious, uncontrolled sound. The minx.)

 

_

 

On the morning of Charles's sixteenth birthday, he woke at once, smashing his nose into a large paper-wrapped box set on the pillow next to his head. He rubbed at his bleary eyes. Deja - what? Erik sprang down next to him, jiggling the mattress. 

"Oi," Charles exclaimed, pushing Erik's face away as he blew sour morning breath in Charles's face.

"Open it," Erik demanded, shoving the box into his hands.

It was a chess set. The board was crudely made from cardboard, the edges of it craggy and the squares irregular and uneven. It was meant to be a backdrop, not to distract the eye from the pieces, the stars of the show. Startlingly so. 

"Is this pewter?" Charles asked, picking up a tiny horse's head. Its mane rippled in delicate waves. He put it down, then picked up another - the queen, then the bishop, after it a pawn. Each one was manipulated to perfection.

"Don't get mad."

Charles arched a brow. "What did you do?"

"I stole them. The pewter mugs I made these from. Stryker keeps a collection in his office."

"Erik!" Charles said, but not so scandalized as he sounded. Secretly, he was pleased. 

Erik held up a hand to dissuade Charles from continuing. "It's done and I'm not returning them. Besides," he said, bouncing again before flopping down on top of Charles and blowing a raspberry on his cheek. "No more excuses, English boy. Let's see how your bragging holds up when I kick your _arse_." Though first, they had other business, also involving Charles's arse, and Erik's tongue and fingers and...

 

_

 

At night, the yard lit up like a stadium. Beams of light swooped over it in crisscross patterns, chasing shadows. A patch of dirt escaped unseen. An honor code - enforced by horny teenagers - kept it this way.

Erik rolled Charles underneath him. His shirt was rucked up, but his pretty nipples remained hidden from view. Erik's hand disappeared under the tee, followed by his head. "Nnghh," Charles groaned, arching enticingly, but batted at Erik's head. "Stop, stop. We didn't come out here for this."

A few more minutes of Erik palming Charles through his jeans, then they were standing, shaking off grass and dirt. Erik fidgeted uncomfortably. His erection bordered on painful. The sight of Charles's ass, the curve of it pronounced as he bent down to inspect the gap in the fence, was distracting. He wasn't going to make it. No way. Frankly, it was incomprehensible how any man made it out of his teen years without exploding from _want_. Never mind the next hour, with Charles inches away from him, deliciously rumpled. They could abort this. Erik would turn eighteen soon and he'd be free as a bird. Of course, there was the issue of his sentence extending to an adult facility - but. Freedom could wait. Sex on the other hand -

Charles was staring at him, hands on his hips. "I don't need to be a telepath to know what you're thinking." He shifted aside and gestured to the gap in the fence. "Give it a few more feet. The tear nearly accommodates your height. And after - " Erik would pull it apart and mend it back together " - you can shag me silly until my eyes cross."

That did happen once. The process of getting there certainly bore repeating.

 

_

 

And the night came.

They were swathed in black. 

"Yes, yes," Charles rushed out in a whisper as the fence unstitched, fluid as if melting under fire, and soundless as air. "Brilliant, Erik. Absolutely brilliant." The gap wasn't quite Erik's height and the splintered ends of the wires would certainly snag them if they tried to slip through. "Wider, love. Just a bit more."

A door slammed in the distance. The light beams scampered, then froze, blinding Charles.

*

"Quick," Charles was saying, pushing at Erik's back. "Go on. There's no time."

Erik's sleeve caught on a wire and when he pulled it tore at his flesh. He kept pulling. The light burned on the back of his neck and when he turned, arm outstretched to Charles, it caught him in the eyes. "Fuck," he said, turning away.

*

"Go, go," Charles urged. "Stitch it up! They're coming."

*

Erik obeyed, accustomed to it by now. He blinked.

*

Charles expelled a breath. He was safe. Erik was free.

*

"No," Erik said, his heart dropping. He lurched forward.

The re-knitted fence caught him.

*

"I'm sorry," Charles said, choking on the words, knowing how much Erik hated them. "But you'll come back. I know you will. Go get Raven. Then come back. I'll be waiting."

 

_

And that's how it ended: this boy staring at that boy, through the wire fence separating them.


	3. Chapter 3

Until -

 

**Epilogue**

 

That boy ran.

_

This boy waited.

_

 

This boy Charles was sitting in an isolation cell. He was banished there after Erik escaped, refusing to capitulate under threats and interrogation, months ago.

That boy Erik ran back. He returned - with Raven. She didn't have Charles's talent for mind tricks, but she got them in. She rippled back to blue before Big Foot Hank's very startled eyes and he led the rest of the way.

"The professor - " Hank began, interrupted by Erik saying, "What?" Charles had been productive. A small crowd formed in front of the door to the room holding him. His "students."

The metal sang under Erik's hands. He melted a hole in the door large enough to fit the line of them as they streamed in. Charles was paler, thinner, but his smile was the same. It seared through Erik bright and sweet with welcome. Welcome back. Welcome home. Then - "Let's get the hell out of dodge," Erik said, and pulled Charles to his feet.

They cleared the yard. A beast, an angel, a banshee, Havok, and a dude with chameleon reflexes they nicknamed Darwin ran with them. They bowled through the opposition, knocking them off their feet like bowling pins. As they approached, the gates opened and no one, not a thing, hampered their way.

"Fuck it," Erik said, skidding to a stop. He lifted his arms into the air. "Hallelujah?" Raven quipped from behind him. Erik grinned over his shoulder, met Charles's eyes, and was reminded, instantly purified of rage. 

The chain-link fence rattled, broke earth, and it rose and rose and rose. The metal gleamed under the sun.

"Throw your back into it, love," Charles said, propping his chin on Erik's shoulder. His hand was warm on the small of Erik's back.

Effortless. The fence shot forward and crashed in the distance. And it was effortless.


End file.
